Why The Leftovers‘ Emmy snub is a disgrace

Throughout it’s five-season run David Simon’s masterful The Wire only ever received two nods of approval from the ever-authoritative TV Academy. It’s the most famous snub in Emmys history, still questioned and analysed to this day seeing as The Wire is ranked as one of – if not the – greatest series ever put to television.

Now it seems there’s another show set to join The Wire as hard evidence that the Emmys is actually just a really bad (dad) joke – a dumpster fire of increasingly irrelevant accolades, to put it in the lightest terms I possibly can considering how incompetent this latest oversight is. That series is The Leftovers, coming from a team led by Damon Lindeolf (best known as one of the main writers of Lost) and author Tom Perrotta, he who wrote the show’s source material in 2011.

I’m not quite sure what to write about The Leftovers that hasn’t already been highlighted by writers who have been musing on television and popular culture for much longer than I have, from publications like IGN, Variety, AV Club, Forbes, and Den of Geek. It is an unbelievably exceptional show, unlike anything that has been put on any kind of screen in history, bringing inventive and often gob-smacking perspectives on grief, belief, hope, love, truth, lies, and other heady topics relating to the human condition. By the show’s end Lindeolf had essentially split the show into two concurrent versions and presented it as a kind of Rorschach test, an iteration of the “faith vs science” motif that came to define Lost. It’s unique, beautiful, brave, and contains some of the most profoundly powerful acting I think we will ever see on television.

Veteran actor Ann Dowd, who is the only cast member from the show to ever be nominated for a Leftovers-related Emmy (she’s up for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series this year), said she has “never been more deeply affected by an experience” when chatting about the show to the excellent team over at Gold Derby.

The Leftovers has been named everything from a perfectly-timed masterpiece” to the best HBO drama of all time (a big, but reasonable, call for a network that has brought us The Wire, Oz and The Sopranos). Hardly anyone watched it – which is why it was criminally cut short to three seasons, when it probably needed at least four – but those who did seem to agree that it is a transcendental viewing experience.

Justin = Me. Wall = TV Academy

It’s gotten to the point where if a publication doesn’t have The Leftovers sitting at or near the top of their ‘best of TV’ wrap-ups this year, you should automatically know that publication isn’t worth your attention. Yes, taste is subjective, but there is something about The Leftovers and the reactions it has provoked from experienced critics around the world that places it, unequivocally, at the very top.

The point of this piece isn’t necessarily to encourage you to go and binge The Leftovers (which you most certainly should, assuming you like heady, evocative but lovingly accessible works of art) it’s to add to the pile of voices that are shocked over this snub. The voices that are genuinely curious as to how such a monumentally ignorant snub can occur. I do hope the resulting Twitter storm results in at least an acknowledgement from the academy and a deeper critique of the voting process.

Yes I wrote above that the Emmys are a joke and are becoming increasingly irrelevant, but that’s only in some circles – the circles that matter. Truth is, The Leftovers doesn’t need any nominations, but these awards are still – and unfortunately always will be – seen by the masses as authoritative. Besides, it must be nice to have an industry recognise you, and my heart breaks for the endlessly deserving Carrie Coon, who has become the single best actor on television today (it’s not all bad though, she’s nominated for her work on Fargo), as well as the equally amazing Justin Theroux, the wonderful Christopher Eccleston, the underrated Amy Brenneman, visionaries Max Richter and Liza Richardson (The Leftovers’ Music Supervisor), and of course Lindelof himself. It sure is a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt world.

So, quick Emmy thought. The Drama categories are now the What Was Second-Best to The Leftovers categories.

Variety Talk Series
“Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” (TBS)
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” (ABC)
“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)
“The Late Late Show With James Corden” (CBS)
“Real Time With Bill Maher” (HBO)
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (CBS)